Former athletic director at Archbishop Carroll High School headed to jail for improper contact with teen

NORRISTOWN – A former Archbishop Carroll High School athletic director is headed to jail after admitting to having improper contact with a teenage boy who was an ex-student.

Francis Murphy, 40, of Radnor, stood stone-faced in Montgomery County Court on Thursday as he was sentenced to 5-to 23-months in the county jail after he pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful contact or communication with a minor and corruption of a minor in connection with incidents that occurred in April 2011 with a teenage boy.

President Judge William J. Furber Jr. also ordered Murphy to complete five years’ probation for a total of nearly seven years of court supervision. Murphy must report to jail on Monday to begin serving the sentence.

Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cauffman, who leads the district attorney’s sex crimes unit, sought jail time against Murphy. Defense lawyers William Winning and Timothy Woodward argued for a probationary sentence on behalf of Murphy.

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Before taking the job at Archbishop Carroll in 1999, Murphy coached football and baseball at Kennedy Kenrick Catholic High School between 1996 and 1998.

According to the criminal complaint, Murphy was apprehended in April 2011 after he arrived to pick up the former student at Frosty Falls, an ice cream shop in Bridgeport, for a sexual tryst. Murphy, who had been one of the teen’s football coaches, was met by several Montgomery County detectives who arrested him on the spot.

The student, who was leaving Archbishop Carroll to attend Upper Merion High School, met Murphy when he was in football camp in ninth grade, according to authorities. Murphy, who was the offensive coordinator for Carroll’s football team, had recruited the youth to play ball for the Catholic high school.

When the 11th grade student, who had recently left the high school for financial reasons, sent a Facebook request to Murphy asking for the coach’s help in retrieving a pair of cleats left behind in the boy’s old locker, Murphy readily agreed and allegedly offered to become the teen’s “Sugar Daddy,” a term the high school athlete didn’t quite understand, according to court papers.

During Facebook conversations, Murphy allegedly made sexually explicit suggestions and offered to buy the teenager gifts in exchange for sexual favors, according to prosecutors.